Imperialist Looting For Fun And Profit! Let's Play Renowned Explorers!

Alas, Pedrinho

I am enhanced.

We finish our camping session to continue looting the everliving shit out of exploring Egypt, and we're starting to get pissed off.

Thus far on this expedition, we've been assaulted by friendly mummies, angry scorpions, empty worthless nodes, skyrocketing Supply costs, and Maria's and Pedrinho's stupid melodrama, all without seeing the first hint of a real treasure.

But we're not giving up! We're going to go home with a pile of treasures even if we have to beat down love-bomb every encounter, probe every worthless node, and rack up every damn starvation debuff on this entire wretched map.

In fact, we're already in a great place to rebound. Take a look at where we are now:




We may be down half our Supplies, but we're only a few moves away from BOTH remaining oasis nodes, where we can replenish at least some of our Supplies. And by the time we do THAT, we'll have revealed a lot more of the map - and possible treasure sites.

Southeast, ho!

Wait, why the hell are we going to an empty node instead of getting the Wits challenge to the southwest?

THIS is why:




The only paths from that Wits node are a 2 Supply path (nope) and... the empty node we're about to visit now.

In other words, it would cost us 2 Supplies to get whatever reward that Wits challenge offers.

Not worth it.

If it were a Nature challenge, I'd consider it, but we have special bonuses for those.

So southeast, ho!

Hitting the seemingly empty node, we find...




Rather than bore you with yet another popup for "You have found nothing of interest", I'm offering this alternate depiction of what our crew is experiencing out here.

But while this indeed sucks, look at where we are now:




Sweet Cthulhu, after that long treasureless drought, suddenly TWO new treasure nodes are within reach! All the hardships we've endured so far are about to pay off!

And you bet your tyrant asses we're going for both treasures.

After examining the path Supply costs, I calculate that we should go for the northest treasure first, hit the oasis node for more Supplies, and then pick up the southern treasure.

Giant red mound, ho!




We would like to take the unnecessary risk, please.




Examine the flower and find its sweet, sweet treasure.




Ah, we seem to have discovered a rare Sarlacc Flower.




Again, we are being offered the choice between self-preservation and studying/looting everything in sight. I think that skeleton of the Sarlacc Flower's previous victim is a wonderful touch.

However, we do not yet have the treasure that this node promised, so we are NOT leaving.




Don't you just love our crew's expressions here? We may be only moments away from being digested alive by a giant carnivorous flower, but it's like wow, this glowing algae is the shit!




Nope, not yielding. Search the bodies!

Part of it, of course, is my idiotic determination to score treasures at all costs. But another part is this:




Unlike Pedrinho's stunt at Crystal Mountain, this time we have ALL the relevant traits. The first penalty for staying didn't even push us below 100% success.

And when the next penalty does push us into actually having to make the spin, we'll have a Tool to help us.




Real explorers always stop to loot the aftermath of all the total party kills that happened before they arrived.




Here we go. Treasures are absolutely worth the danger of being digested, yes.




Even with the risk of imminent spiking, Maria can't leave without her flower treasure.

And neither can we.




Wow, our first treasure where all the bonuses are worth considering. We could bump our Nature node bonus up to an absurd 6 Study tokens (or 4 Study and 2 Campaign), or make our Discovery tokens worth even MORE Research, or...

...or realize that we've already boosted our Discovery tokens so much that they now yield more Gold than we get from even Treasure Hunt tokens, and we could get a double dose of that action right now!

(Actually, a triple dose since we completed the Nature Science paper that grants a free Discovery with every treasure!)

And we did kind of promise to buy Pedrinho some new offensive gear to help him get over his heartbreak with Maria.

So yeah, we're going to turn away from the path of being TOO dependent on Nature nodes, and get a metric bangton of Research and Gold!




Our treasure in hand, we now face the terrifying exit challenge. If we fail this, we're going to get brutalized even worse than Crystal Mountain.

But again, we have all the relevant traits for this one.

Wait, does that say 65%? I almost forgot to use one of our Tools!



Much better.




Nothing but net.




As befitting all our bonuses, our crew clearly did not feel the least bit threatened by any part of this sequence.




We're looking back, all right.

Team Emilia 1, Sarlacc Flower 0!

Hey, remember how our Mali expedition sucked for a while, but then after a certain point, we just started kicking ass almost nonstop?

That point for this expedition is RIGHT NOW.

With our confidence for this expedition now at an all-time high, we will proceed to the oasis node to gather some needed Supplies.






At the oasis proper, Maria demonstrates her worth by effortlessly beguiling the locals out of Supplies.







While Maria was screwing around, the rest of our crew scrounged up a further 2 Supplies, for a total of +4 Supplies. Very nice.




Supplies in hand, we will now advance towards the second treasure.

After that, we'll probably cut a semicircle around that empty node, heading eastward.




I could be mistaken, but that looks like exactly the same British dude who helped us at the start of this expedition.

Given that, let's at least see if we can avoid an encounter and get what we want with Maria's social skills.




By this point, I'm convinced Maria could have dealt with Pedrinho by simply beguiling him into believing that the path of celibacy is the absolute coolest thing a man can do.




Once again we are successfully sweet-talking someone into giving us their bling.

This is slightly better than just beating them up and taking it.




The advisor gushingly vouches for us, but his words are actually true.

As you can see in the top right corner, we have a Friendly reputation and almost half of the Renown needed for total victory. Also, we've demonstrated at every turn that even when we have to go Devious or outright Aggressive during encounters, we try as hard as possible to end things Friendly - and we've been pretty damn good at that, too.

With our worthiness so impeccably established, we gratefully accept our new Canoptic Jars.




Nothing fancy here for bonuses, just a couple Treasure Hunt tokens or a pile of Study tokens.

We already have quite a bit of Research coming in, so we should opt for the Treasure Hunts.

(And of course, the bonus Discovery token because Nature Science.)

Meanwhile, here's a side by side comparison of what both these rare tokens - Discovery and Treasure Hunt - are currently worth to us.



Discovery tokens are so excellent now - and Emilia is just going to keep making them even better as the game continues. Our emphasis on science is literally paying off!




Back on the map. Our plan to get both treasures totally worked, and now we need to make another move.

We will proceed south and hope for the best. I calculate that we will be able to reach the second oasis node within 4-5 Supplies at most - and our current Supplies can handle that.




We came this way hoping for the best, and this is a great start. We missed the hidden hoard node in expedition 2, but we just nailed it for expedition 3.

Let's take another sweet Discovery token.




Our chosen path gets even better with an unexpected Supply node! A Cultural challenge will be involved, but between Maria's uber social skills and Emilia's Archaeology perks, I think we can handle it.




Doh! This challenge demands Diplomacy, which is a slightly different skill than Maria's patented Beguiler skill. Luckily, her base stats are so high that she has an even shot of passing anyway.

Walking away from this challenge would be the same as failing it - a loss of Supplies. With only 5 Supplies left, this would all but damn us to proceed directly to the final node or face starvation debuffs.

So Maria's going for it, and we're using our second Tool to bump her up to 75%.






Maria easily persuades the camp leader to let her party with them. (And the rest of our crew, too.) Along with another Supply point, we score a nice sampler of tokens for our trouble.




Our fortune continues with the sighting of a Nature node. Another pile of Study tokens for us, and another step towards Emilia improving all those Discovery tokens we've collected!




I'm not sure what we can expect to find here, but Pedrinho is on top of it.

Amusingly, we're finally getting an Athlete bonus for something... only for it to not matter because Pedrinho has more than enough Survivalist levels to ace this challenge anyway. That Machete sure was a great investment, guys!




A choice of either 2 Study tokens or 2 Collect tokens.

We already have an impressive pile of Study tokens (and Discoveries), so we'll take some more Collect tokens, please.




With that Nature node completed, Emilia upgrades our Discovery token again.

More Gold, please. (And yes, this upgrade will count even for the Discovery tokens we're carrying now!)

After that, our crew again express their admiration for Emilia's intellect.

And so do I. My comments about Emilia as a captain were a little harsh at the start of this LP, but she's actually a lot of fun (and very profitable) if you play to her strengths.




Oooh, another Nature node. Even with a 2 Supply cost, it's tempting... but with our Supplies now circling the drain, we'd have to go straight to the final node afterward.

Instead, we'll head towards the last oasis node, pick up some Supplies, and see what's on the other side of the final node. I'm gambling that something better will be there, maybe even one last treasure.

First, though, we must go through an empty node - where indeed we find nothing.

NOW we can explore the oasis node.




Hot damn, more friendly nomads. We'd eagerly take another deal like we got the first time we ran into friendly nomads on this map.




Surely enough, they offer us the exact same choice as the first time, too.

And we take the exact same option, getting a couple more Supply points and a big pile of 8 Collect tokens.

Maybe the RNG could have varied the oasis events a little more, but I'm not going to complain when it keeps handing us the best oasis event.

With that, we'll call it an update.

Join us next time as we assault the War Temple of Sekhmet, finish the expedition, and then vote on our penultimate map!

With only a few Supply points left - and no more Supply nodes in sight - we must decide how to proceed before the final node.

Lacking any better options, we will go east, to the Technique challenge node. If the revealed node below that is worthwhile, we'll go there, too. And then it's time for the final node.

Why, yes, I DID notice the Technique node will be a 2 Supply cost. We are at last yielding to that bullshit.

What? We already have a better haul from this expedition than the Mali trip. I am no longer afraid.




Emilia will seize the opportunity to make a new Tool in preparation for the final node.

We will need it.






Giving Emilia that Monkey Wrench made all the difference, and we are now better prepared to finish this map.




Tragically, our would-be penultimate node turns out to be empty.

I almost decided to visit it out of spite... until I remembered that some of these empty nodes can cost us Supplies with bullshit events, which would slap us with a starvation debuff at this stage.

Much as it galls me to hit the final node with Supplies (even 1 point) remaining, that is the safest course of action here.




We are ready. We're walking right into that Temple of War, and we're going to smile, pillage, and burn everything.




Awww yeah.

This time, we're not up against some cranky but innocent old man who's actually the victim of foreign exploitation. We're daring to confront a goddess of war and destruction right on her own turf - and if we can pry a treasure from her grasp, no one's going to tell us we didn't earn it.

Friendly or otherwise, that's a much more heroic narrative for a crew like ours.




Maria may do the talking for our crew, but Emilia is the brain of our operation.

And our brain prizes Study tokens way more than Campaign.






Behold, the goddess Sekhmet's doorman.

So the way this works is that we have to pass either a Tactician challenge or a Diplomacy challenge. Sportingly, the Mummy General will not only allow us to take either approach, but evaluate our odds at both first.

Alternately, we could just force our way past the Mummy General like a bunch of braindead aggressors (and most certainly take a penalty of some sort). But that would be foolish if we can actually pass one of the challenges.

Well, let's weigh our options. Tactics first!




Okay, yeah, this isn't going to happen. Even a +25% from the Tool would leave it at too much of a gamble. Let's reconsider!




Better. Another Diplomat challenge where Maria is good enough to rate a coin flip.

And again we'll use a Tool to boost her to 75%.






Not for the first time, we manage to talk our way out of trouble. And we got a better reward than winning the Tactician challenge - a rare Secret token!



This would be more exciting if we were doing a Status strategy.




One measly token either way. We're still picking Collect over Study, but it barely matters.







In classic Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet was also a goddess of healing, and has been construed as a divine arbiter of justice and order before whom evil trembles.

The narrative of this game, though, will mostly focus on her aspect of war and destruction.

She's coming for us, tyrants - and her ancient worshippers aren't here to perform festivals to pacify her bloodlust.




To paraphrase a certain depiction of King Leonidas, our long expedition through the desert has left a nasty cramp in all our legs, so kneeling is out of the question.

Let's do this.




The reward for a Friendly victory is as sweet as ever, but can we get away with it this time?




Then again, maybe we can! Contrary to her super-aggro statement before this fight, Sekhmet's side is starting off Friendly!

In fact, let's take a closer look at Sekhmet herself:




Right now - absurd as it may seem at first glance - Sekhmet is in her Bastet form, which is no less a precursor to Mr. Rogers than we are. This form is especially resistant (or outright immune) to non Rage-flavored Devious attacks, as well as being immune to Impress-flavored moves (like Maria's Seduce).

She also is hovering over the ground in a serene manner, and has a glowing sunlike thingy floating behind her.

Notably, Bastet form has no Armor. Combined with the high Speech Defense, Devious resistances, and Friendly stance, this presents a big temptation to go Aggressive on her.

Going Aggressive at any point will cause Sekhmet to assume her war form (with greatly buffed attacks) and tear us to pieces, especially as our own Armor is not all that great, either.

So basically, we're going to see how far we can get keeping things Friendly.




Meanwhile, those hordes of white Mummies are actually the weaker version of the Mummies we fought earlier (although one of those guys is here, too). As you can see, these weaker Mummies not only have low Spirit, but are vulnerable to both Sadness and Cheer. As such, our crew will be able to tear through them!




So we need some kind of opening plan here. What I decided to do is have Pedrinho and Maria rush the two Mummies in the middle (pausing only to let Emilia enhance Pedrinho with her Excite move). Both of these undead bandaids should fall easily to the failed couple's Excite moves.

Afterwards, the remaining Mummies (and Bastet) will not have enough Move points to reach us, leaving the advantage in our court for round 2.




I messed up Pedrinho's screen capture (and was too lazy and honorable to alt-F4 and redo all this), but Maria's turned out nicely.

Team Emilia 2, Mummies 0.

Your move, Bastet.




Opening of round 2. As I had predicted, all of the Mummies converged on our position, but were unable to attack our crew. As I feared, though, Bastet's group is not in a particularly good formation for Pedrinho's Party Time.




We're going to attempt another hit and scoot out of reach tactic. Pedrinho will take down that nearby Mummy with his Enrage while Emilia and Maria buff each other with Excite. (To hell with it, phrasing it like that definitely sounds kind of Exciting.)




Pedrinho may be the nicest Renowned Explorer after Kwame and fricking Ivan, but sometimes he can manage to be a dick when it counts.




End of round 2.

The best case scenario is that Bastet will go down that middle path - separating herself from her group where we can dogpile her - while most of the Mummies will congregate to our upper left where Pedrinho can take out at least some of them with Party Time. None of them should still be able to attack us.

...

Tragically, after hitting End Turn, I realized that I misread one Mummy's position, allowing it to reach Pedrinho.




But the Mummy's hug misses! How nice.

Oh, and then Pedrinho learned that Bastet's attack actually has a reach of 2 spaces.



Bastet attempts some sort of invocation on our Scout... and also fails her attack.




Start of round 3. Despite Pedrinho's expert evasion of all the attacks, the bad guys STILL aren't grouped to where we can get a triple hit with Party Time.




So we're gonna keep being evasive. We'll cram our crew to the right of Bastet, forcing the Mummies to move around her if they want to get to us. In the meantime, we'll focus all our attacks on Bastet, and Emilia will lead with her Amnesia Shot to soften her up first.




Bastet proves somewhat more open to Pedrinho's charms than Maria was...




...but Maria is not to be outdone.




End of round 3.

This is a dangerous moment. Bastet is still in Friendly stance, and our Excite attacks - while our least shitty option - have left her with the +25% Excited buff to speech attacks.
On top of that, while we have removed more than half her Sprit, her Amnesia Shot debuff will wear off this turn, making it harder to keep hammering her.

Our best hope is that we'll be able to nail her with Party Time after the Mummies close in.




Maria lacks Pedrinho's teflon coating, so she ends up taking the full force of Bastet's Excite-buffed attack, leaving her Impressed (and thus vulnerable to more speech damage, which will easily take her down at this point).




Meanwhile, a Mummy slips around and hugs our captain. But even geeky, adorkable Emilia is a tougher woman than Maria, and the Mummy barely causes enough Spirit damage for her (or us) to care.




The final round is upon us.

Did I say final round?




Yes. Because the Riot of Rio, unable to stomach watching Maria stare at Bastet in slack-jawed, loving awe, has decided it's Party Time.




Once again, Pedrinho dominates the dance floor, sending bad guys to the sidelines. If he can keep up this kind of encounter performance, we'll have to upgrade his nickname to the Hurricane of Rio.

Meanwhile, there's also this:



Apparently the effects of Amnesia Shot last until the end of the round AFTER you use it. Doh!

Bastet is doomed now, but we'll do an Aggressive attack real quick so we can see her war form (and Maria's awesomely feeble punch).




Nice, huh?

Don't get the wrong idea. I don't know why Maria knows how to do a left hook, but it wouldn't have done ANYWHERE near that much damage without that Amnesia Shot AND the +50% Aggressive backstab bonus.






Immediately Bastet transforms into her true Sekhmet form, boosting her Armor (and her actual attack moves) at the cost of Speech Defense.

She has also stopped levitating in a serene manner, and her glowing sunlike thingy is now a seething black hole of death.

But she's not going to get a chance to do anything, because she has three things counting against her: only a tiny sliver of Spirit remaining, the Amnesia Shot debuff, and the fact that she's standing next to Pedrinho's defense-reducing Festive Hat.




Our captain steps up to deliver the coup de grace to this ridiculous deity.






Amusingly, we are entitled to victory buffs even after the expedition's final battle.

For the victory cutscene, we get a nice little permanent Speech Power bonus and an extra pile of Campaign tokens.

And don't worry, Sekhmet. Your time may not be now, but in another century? You'll have playgrounds all over the world.




The expedition's final treasure is now in sight.

Emilia is clearly fighting the temptation to seize the mask and invent cosplaying.




Sekhmet's Mask is indeed a treasure fit for a goddess. Charmingly, it's even cat-themed!

Since our Discovery tokens are so awesome now, we will take even more of those. Just ONE of our Discovery tokens is almost worth more Gold than those six Collect tokens.




Before we can go back to London, we are greeted by one last exit challenge.

We have already used all our Tools and bonus Tools and other tricks.

There is nothing to do but spin the wheel and hope for the best.




We have passed many less-likely challenges than this, but clearly our luck has run out.




I love our crew's collective expressions at the threat of actually being trapped with each other.

They each, in their own way, have embraced the truth that hell is other people.




Case in point! If there's anything worse than slowly dying in a tomb, it's being rescued by Rivaleux.

Meanwhile... the Anti-Explorers are a storyline that got added with the More To Explore DLC. Expedition 5 - the final expedition - will come down to a choice between fighting Rivaleux or going to the Anti-Explorers' secret island to fight them (and also dinosaurs). Depending on how we're set up after expedition 4, it can be a surprisingly difficult choice!




Surprisingly, Rivaleux elects to leave without trying to steal our discovery this time. A bummer, given that I think most of us would have welcomed a chance to even the score with him.

Bah. Let's just rack up our (considerable) score for this expedition and be happy.




Our haul is quite impressive this time. Only three treasures, but they were each quality treasures. Between that and our token management, we've gained enough to get another specialist or two, get at least two or three more Engineering research papers done, and holy shit buy a metric bangton of gear with all that Gold.




Our updated ranking. Another expedition like our last one, and we'll be on top.




Another choice of which location to unlock.

We only gained 3 Insight points from our Egypt adventure, but we could use some better places to spend it.

Oh yeah, we need to think about how that last expedition will look in the official record.

Tell me I'm wrong, though.

Okay, tyrants, listen up.

For expedition 4, we're going to do things slightly different than I've been handling it so far.

In the past, I spent all our Gold and Status and Research and whatnot on good stuff, then let you all pick the next map.

I've come to realize that's a little backwards! We should pick our map, then buy what will give us the best chance of succeeding on that particular map.

As such, we're going to end this update by going straight to the new maps and voting!

Here are the tier-4 expeditions:




The skillset for this shouldn't be an issue, as we have all those skills to some extent (or can at least use specialists or trinkets to pick up some levels before we go). The "need both strength and charm" bit is not promising, though. We do very well at speech combat, but we can only do the Aggressive approach for fleeting periods. Also, the reward - Status and Research - is not as good for our crew as all Research or (better) a combination of Research and Gold.

This map may be the bad pick for this round!




This expedition was added in the Emperor's Challenge DLC (in laymen's terms, that means it has a quirk or two that the other maps don't). The recommendation of either Friendly and Aggressive is nice, but like the Globus Cruciger map, we'll need to work on that skillset with some trinkets and specialists if we want the best odds. The reward of Gold and Status, unfortunately, less than ideal for a Research crew like ours.




Now this sounds almost too good to be true. We have the Archaeology skill (and could pack on at least two more levels before we start), the Nature challenges promise a veritable flood of Study tokens and Discovery upgrades from all our bonuses, and the reward - Research and Gold - is also exactly what we need.

Oh yeah, and Emilia's crew story has her looking for a special Caribbean plant - and this is a Caribbean map.

We've built seemingly the perfect crew for this expedition!

So now we vote on a map. Unfortunately, it's kind of a no-brainer decision this time, but if you all honestly would prefer the Globus Cruciger or the Anagogic Archipeligo adventure, we'll make it work.

Another issue where I could use some input is what to spend all our Gold on. Normally when I play this game, I just buy the best defense gear I can afford along with whatever trinkets have skills I need. But some of our crew (particularly Pedrinho) could get a lot of mileage out of offensive gear.

So let's vote on that, too! Should we keep upgrading our defenses (the course we've taken so far, gear-wise) or start investing in some offense (trusting our current defense items and our footwork to protect us while we mow down the enemy harder than ever)?

Go with Emerged Island, and transform Pedrinho into the Hurricane he was born to be.





Moogle mask??

I agree with Mogri - Go to No Brainer and have Pedrinho set your foes' souls afire with a slanderous mambo.

agree with mogri

For our fourth and penultimate expedition, we have elected to explore the Emerged Island (also known as "No Brainer Island") and upgrade our offensive gear.

Before we embark, though, we need to spend Research, Status, Insight, and (especially) Gold to better prepare us for our journey!

No, wait, there's one thing that comes even before that.




Pedrinho ascended to level 4 from that last encounter (Maria and Emilia should hit level 4 soon as well). This time, he has the choice of a Survivalist or Beguiler perk. Well, we still have Maria for all our Beguiling needs, so Survivalist perk is the obvious choice here.

Now we can start spending!




We didn't earn all that much Status, so we'll get that out of the way first.

This specialist will give Emilia another Archaeology skill, and grant +1 Study when anyone with 4+ levels of Archaeology succeeds at a spin.

Emilia will easily have that much Archaeology by the time we get to No Brainer Island, and it'll definitely come in handy, as most of the Nature challenges there will probably involve her science skills.




In all our screwing around with specialists and other skill upgrades, we've kind of neglected Maria (she has four total skill levels, while Emilia and Pedrinho both have around eight or nine), so we'll get something to help her now.

While it is indeed comical to think that sexy Maria could use any Beguiler tips from a clown (and children's book author), she nonetheless gains Beguiler - Sense of Humor from him. Like our last specialist, Bobo offers a "+1 token when level 4 of my skill succeed at a spin" deal (in this case, a Campaign token and Beguiler). Maria will be able to take advantage of this, as well.

(Yes, again, we're not big on Campaign tokens and Status, but every little bit helps.)




After getting those two specialists, we have 147 Status left... almost enough to get another Student helper to further improve our Study tokens. We'll come back for one of these guys after we're done spending Insight.

Speaking of Insight...




Last time, we unlocked three new locations to spend Insight. Basically, they work just like the locations we had before, only they add a bonus token to the pile. So while Berlin (our old Research location) has a base of 2 Study tokens (before crew bonuses), the new locations will do something like add a Campaign or Collect token to the pile.

For comparison, here's what Emilia can get with one Insight point in Berlin:




Not bad!

But among the new locations, the one we're most interested in with the Timbuktu Ruins, which starts with 1 Collect / 2 Study:




That... is not a huge improvement. We're getting a little more Gold, sure, but we're taking a big hit on Research!

What the hell?

The answer, unfortunately, is that while we do have some crew-specific bonuses for Insight, some of our Insight bonuses are specific to Berlin.

Since we need more Research than anything now, we've basically gained nothing from opening these new locations.

So should we have chosen to open more shops and entourage halls instead? Not really. The shops and halls we have now already offer everything our particular crew will need to finish the game, so opening more of those instead would have been largely meaningless, too.

With a sigh, we send Emilia back to Berlin to spend our Insight. The first point gains us the Status we need to pick up that Student helper, so we grab him (and get his Study token bonus) to improve our Research gain from the last two Insight points.

Now we have enough total Research to get two more Engineering papers done:

• Effective Equipment: +1-3 Research from Collect tokens.
• Hidden Compartments: Free Treasure Hunt token for every treasure.

Some nice bonuses there. Now our efforts to hoard Collect tokens will help our Research, too, and we'll be getting a free Discovery and Treasure Hunt token from every treasure (on top of the treasure's own bonus). Some of our earlier treasures weren't even worth a Discovery and Treasure Hunt token put together!

Anyway, are you disappointed that we only got two more papers despite being a Research crew? Don't be! Each paper raises the cost of the next paper - they may have started at 10 Research per paper, but now we're paying 350 for the next! Also, we completed two whole research fields by expedition 3 - most non-Research crews are kicking ass if they get that much done over the entire game.

Better yet, most crews would be kicking ass to have as much Gold as we do, too!

And on that note, it's time for the moment we've all been waiting for - spending that giant pile of Gold we earned! This is going to be sweet.




We'll start by giving Emilia her second trinket. This Trowel & Broom will give her another Archaeologist level, bringing her to Archaeology 4 and allowing her to use that specialist's +1 Study token per spin bonus. It also comes with the same Speech Defense-reducing powers that Pedrinho enjoys with his Festive Hat.

Speaking of Pedrinho...




The first thing we do for Pedrinho is sell off that underperforming Machete and get him a Lucky Charm. Unlike most trinkets, this grants no skills, but it does grant him Sadness resistance (great because the Sad debuff reduces Speech Power), and also lets him start every encounter in Excited mode. Which means that he gets that +25% Speech Power buff without Emilia or Maria having to waste a turn Exciting him.

Yes, Pedrinho has at last learned that he doesn't need a woman to be happy.

Of course, Pedrinho's transformation is not complete without an awesome offensive item like we were talking about earlier. Behold!




That's right, tyrants - I splurged most of that giant pile of Gold to get Pedrinho the most powerful Speech Power-boosting item available! Between that epic stat boost, Pedrinho's auto-Excited buff, and his +25% bonus from Maria's rejection...

...well, you can see for yourself:




The top left and middle left stats are Speech Power and Attack Power, respectively. Pedrinho's Speech Power is now almost twice Maria's Speech Power! And the per-target boosts for Party Time will make that power hit that much harder.

We have yet to test him in the field, of course, but that only means someone needs to warn the Emerged Island that the Hurricane of Rio is approaching!

Embark!




Seems like a friendly place already.




So to recap, we went to all that trouble - and all that expense - to upgrade Pedrinho's speech attacks, only for the first encounter to begin with Pedrinho unable to speak.

Well, up yours as well, game.




The usual song and dance for victory conditions. A big pile of tokens for a Friendly win, which we're going for whether we feel like it or not.




The map opens with Pedrinho indeed unable to make any non-Aggressive attacks. That makes me so mad. I mean, look at his Speech power now with the Excited buff kicking in - 93! I've beaten this game with almost all the captains, and I don't know if I've seen a crew stat THAT high, ever.

The enemies, meanwhile, consist of one Voodoo Dart-Blower who is a fragile ranged attacker, and three Voodoo Pirates who are Charm-resistant but Sad-vulnerable. Meaning Maria will eat them alive, but we might not be able to pull off a Friendly victory, especially if Pedrinho is silenced for the entire fight.

Whatever, let's go.




The Hurricane of Rio will not be so easily ignored. While Pedrinho's Legendary Book boosted his Speech Power through the roof, it gave him a good amount of regular Attack Power, too - and the Voodoo Dart-Blower is going to take it.




I failed to get decent screencaps of Pedrinho's attack, but he's hit the Voodoo Dart-Blower hard - and maneuvered the encounter into Hostile stance, where Maria and Emilia will get bonuses to their Devious attacks.




Maria is about to make a Voodoo Pirate VERY sad.




88 freaking damage. Our Speaker hit this guy so hard, the calendar felt it.




Emilia steps in to finish the Voodoo Pirate off...




...and fumbles her damn attack. Thanks, captain, it's not like we're outnumbered here or anything.

Now it's THEIR turn.




One of the Voodoo Pirates rushes up and whacks Maria real good.




Then another Voodoo Pirate rushes up and finishes Maria off, costing us a Resolve point!




Adding injury to further injury, the third Voodoo Pirate takes a shot at our captain.

For some reason, the Voodoo Dart-Blower doesn't do anything, but I'm too pissed off to wonder why.

Start of round 2. This would be so perfect if Pedrinho could use his Party Time, but he's still silenced.




Instead, we send Pedrinho around to revive Maria. She'll cost us more Resolve if she gets swatted down AGAIN, but I have a plan to prevent that.




I strategically position Maria between a rock and Pedrinho, which should allow only one pirate to attack her at a time. Oh, and she'll crush another Voodoo Pirate's heart while she's at it.




Damn it, they have 100 Spirit, and she's hitting them almost hard enough to one-shot them.




So Maria's Sadden attack switched our stance to Devious for a +25 Grit bonus - another part of our defensive strategy here. To finish off our turn, Emilia will incapacitate one of the Voodoo Pirates with a shovel to the head.

Because when you cut up our Speaker with your stupid voodoo swords, you get a fucking shovel to the head.

And then the game crashed.

That's right, Emilia was SO pissed off that her shovel attack broke the world.

Sigh.

As much as I don't want to fight this bullshit battle all over again, I reload the game and our save, and -




Son of a bitch. Like with the campfire story on our first expedition, the game is just going to pretend the opening battle didn't happen and drop us on the empty node. No token reward, no after-battle cutscene, no Resolve loss, nothing.

I honestly don't even know what to feel about this.

I mean, sure, we can pretend that bullshit encounter was just a fever dream and it's great that we didn't lose any Resolve and whatnot. But dammit, we got caught with our pants down (our Armor defense is still really feeble), and we should have had to face the consequence of that. It wouldn't have broken us, and we would have gotten much-needed XP and a pile of tokens from it.

In return for not losing any Resolve, though, we're faced with a new problem.




Do you see the final node there? I sure as hell don't - the after-battle cutscene where it gets revealed didn't happen.

Doh!

I suppose we'll just have to wander around and find it the old-fashioned way.




So for our first move, I thought that was really sweet how a treasure node is already in sight of our start... but our policy on 2-Supply paths remains unchanged. As such, we'll check out the free Science node first.




Why is it that ALL our expeditions have begun so inauspiciously?

Plotting our next move, I take a look at the paths around that treasure node.




Yep, it's official. This game has stopped pretending to like us.

We can still visit that Culture challenge to the northwest for free, so we'll do that. Then we're just going to have to bite the bullet and pay 2 Supplies to get to that treasure - and then probably 2 more to leave.




A nice break. All those Archaeology levels we got for Emilia are paying off already.




At this point, we've already gained enough Research to finish our next research paper.




Sigh. We'll pay the 2 Supplies, but this treasure had better be A-grade.




Just for the record, Voodoo isn't merely a cheesy horror movie trope. It's an actual family of religions descended from traditional African beliefs.

What I'm getting at here is that what we're about to see probably isn't totally historically accurate.




Sure, Pedrinho. Why not?




And another hit for Archaeology!

So we could start an encounter here to save this young man. But we're really not in the mood to mess with game-crashing voodoo pirates right now, so we'll just watch this poor sap meet his doom.

You know, for science!






So we passed the challenge, but did we make the right choice? Is a treasure still on the table?




Our crew may or may not be any more ethical than voodoo monkeys, but it takes more than a small box to defeat us.




Interestingly enough, yes - we still get a treasure for choosing science over human life.




We'll take the two Treasure Hunt tokens.




There sure are some weird things going on here. But it won't stop us from reaching the final node.

Wherever the hell the final node is.




Examining the map, it seems the empty node to the west is the least shitty of our current options. We've got to keep pushing into the island until we spot that final node.




Yeah, well, we don't care about HERE.

We care about what's beyond here.




And what's beyond here is a Nature node that is also a treasure node. Our two favorite flavors, together at last!

I know we were expecting Pedrinho to rock this expedition, but so far this has been Emilia's show.




"A bit gross" still merits a treasure in this world - and the free Discovery and Treasure Hunt tokens that come with it. This is great, guys. I've never had both of those bonuses going in one run before.




A less impressive treasure than the Voodoo Doll, but I love that punk skull shell.

We'll take the Study / Collect option.




As for our next move, we can't say no to a free Supply node.




You know, I really have to question the logistics here. This island only recently emerged from the depths of the ocean, so this "old crate" has probably been underwater for we don't even know HOW long. How on Earth could it contain anything that would still be edible?

All the same, we'll eagerly collect our Supply points and move on.




The final node is now visible to us. This is something of a relief, as I was almost fearing it didn't spawn at all, which would have left the map in an unwinnable state.

We won't be hitting the final node just yet, though. We're going northwest to get more Supplies. With all our bonuses, we want to find as many treasures as we can!




The captain has but one request.

If you've been paying attention, you might recognize this "Captain Roche" as the Dutch pirate whose treasure we had a chance to investigate for expedition 2.

All this is actually a reference to Roche Braziliano, a real life pirate who terrorized the Caribbean and was a companion to the more famous pirate Henry Morgan before disappearing mysteriously in 1671.

Hold up, though. If this game takes place in the mid-19th century, then how could Roche still be around to steal this guy's crew?

Captain Roche is a ghost now.




The mystery of Roche aside, the captain is inviting us to retreive a crate.

The option below "Decline" is "Laugh at the captain, take his supplies, and leave".

Captain Emilia is a sweetheart, so we are not doing that.

Instead, Emilia will go for the Supplies and another pile of tokens. And she'll use a Tool because we still don't want any Resolve losses.






We get our Suppplies and tokens, and the captain agrees to spread the word that Polish archaeologists are actually totally smart.




With our Supplies almost back to full and two treasures already on our scorecard, we will proceed confidently southwest to the Culture node.




Damn it, Emilia.

Pedrinho's ludicrous Speech Power actually gives him an edge on this one. But we'd have to use our other Tool, and the payoff here isn't good enough to justify it. We'll sacrifice a Supply point and leave with our last Tool and our Resolve intact.




Meh.




Other than the final node, our only choice here is an encounter node.

Bring it on. I think we can all agree that it's way past due for Pedrinho to show off his new power.




I don't even know what a voodoo monkey is supposed to be, but these guys are about to get slammed by the Hurricane of Rio.




I know the drill, you know the drill. Let's make this happen.




Five monkeys in Devious stance (which will be weak to our Friendly approach), and three of them are already in a perfect position for a first turn triple-hit Party Time.

Go, Pedrinho! We choose you!




Remember the last fight, when Maria was slapping those Sad-vulnerable pirates for 90 damage per hit?

These Voodoo Monkeys aren't even Excite-vulnerable, and Pedrinho is going to hit ALL of them even harder than THAT.




Sweet merciful Cthulhu. Pedrinho just delivered a three-way beatdown party for over 130 damage. EACH.




Pedrinho's Party Time is a tough act to follow now, but Emilia moves to Excite one of the two remaining Voodoo Monkeys, taking advantage of her own Speech Defense-reducing trinket.




Emilia's hit is actually respectable here. It just doesn't seem like it because Pedrinho is a hurricane now.




Then Maria steps up to relieve the Voodoo Monkey of his remaining Spirit.




On their turn, the final remaining Voodoo Monkey wisely attempts a physical attack to get past our boosted Speech Defense. But he just can't slap Emilia hard enough to make a difference.

Round 2 begins, and Maria and Emilia Excite-bomb the last Voodoo Monkey into submission before Pedrinho has to get involved.




This was a satisfying encounter, as Pedrinho's new Speech Power is as spectacular as we hoped it would be (and more).

However, it's still clear that we need better Armor against physical attacks. We'll have to look into that when we're gearing up for the final expedition.




Great.

With that, I think we'll call it an update. Aside from the heartbreak of the opening glitch, this expedition is going really smoothly so far.

Join us next time as we level up our crew, finish the map, deliver justice to Captain Roche, and loot all his sweet pirate treasure!

Does the game crash often, or are you just spectacularly unlucky?

The latter, amazingly. As mentioned above, I've beaten the game with almost all the captains (only Victor, Ivan, Jan-Piet, Phailin, Suh Min-Jeong, and Hojo still elude me), and this is the first time I've seen it crash in the middle of a battle like that. So OF COURSE it happens now that I'm playing this game for an audience.

(Meanwhile, the expedition 1 campfire glitch was kind of my fault, as the game doesn't like it when you save in the middle of an event or battle like that.)

For anyone loving this thread, Steam just put this game on sale until August 13th.

Good eye, Taeryn! I'd actually been hoping for just such a sale myself. (I might have a little surprise put together for the end of this LP.)

Meanwhile, that last encounter pushed both Emilia and Maria to level 4.




Emilia's level 4 choice is very simple. Either a Naturalist or Archaeologist perk, but she already has the Archaeologist one (Archaeologists - Legends, which she got botching the ritual to Cernunnos the Horned God in expedition 1).




Maria's level 4 offers a choice between Beguiler and Archaeologist. Emilia is already our Archaeologist, so Beguiler it is. This level also unlocks Maria's second trinket slot and her second special move, Heartplay.

Heartplay is a weird move which is half-power, but hits twice and stuns non-bosses if our own stance is Aggressive. It's not much, but it'll give us a little more wiggle room when we have to go Aggressive in an encounter.




That last node was also where we filled our campfire meter, so let's get that out of the way, too.

I really like how our crew show their personalities during these scenes, too. Emilia is studying her plant and taking notes, Pedrinho is tuning his guitar without a care in the world, and Maria is - even in the depths of this voodoo pirate-infested wilderness - doing her nails.

Anyway, our choice of cards this time is +2 Resolve points, a pile of Study tokens, that Campaign Charm we've been keeping since expedition 1, and a pile of Campaign tokens.

We'll finally play Campaign Charm, which will give Maria +4 Campaign tokens on all Beguiler spins. We'll keep the Resolve+ one, too - it might come in handy in the final expedition.










Camptime is over, and our choice of nodes is awesome. A Nature node with Supplies and treasure is the best node possible!

Southeast, ho!




Pedrinho, our Scout with all the physical skills, will step up to this challenge.




Please, node. Pedrinho himself is already something extraordinary!




Pedrinho has long ago outgrown any need to pander to Maria, so I choose to read that line as a sly dig at her.

At any rate, Pedrinho can't let a treasure go - and a Voodoo Ritual Book does sound pretty intriguing.




Woot, this is a Survivalist challenge. Pedrinho should easily be able to get ALL the bonuses in this sequence and still ace the final spin.




Is it possible that Pedrinho was the original Tarzan?




Foolish primates. Your coconut attack will only strengthen Pedrinho!




The narrative pretends our crew is insufficiently badass that we actually have to CHOOSE between food and treasure.




Stopping to grab the Supply coconuts hurt us slightly here, but not enough that we should feel uncomfortable about this spin.






The monkeys should never have pit themselves against a man who outran the collapsing cave of Crystal Mountain.




That sound you just heard was my jaw dropping.

Right now, Pedrinho has five Survivalist levels, and we're talking about Discovery tokens here. At this rate, we're going to win enough Gold from this expedition to deck out everyone with legendary-level gear.




Getting back to the map, we should visit the Supply node AND the Nature node. But the Supply node will be cheaper to hit first.

(First, though, take a look at our current Renown at the upper right corner. 2433! Only 67 points away from victory!)




So this is weird. The choices here are 1 Supply point, 3 Supplies and 1 Study token but lose 1 Resolve, or 5 Supply / 2 Study / -2 Resolve.

I'm not keen on losing Resolve (seriously, you guys have no idea how harsh the final expedition can be), so we'll take the first option.




Visiting the Nature node is still our best choice here. That would be so sweet if we could get another upgrade on all those Discovery tokens before the end of this trip.




Too late, we see the error of selling off Pedrinho's Machete too early.

We could use our Tool to bump this up to 53%. Which, with a Resolve point at stake, I would normally not even consider.

But then, I realize that by all rights, we SHOULD be down a Resolve point - and up a pile of tokens - from that bullshit opening encounter.

So yeah, perhaps my sense of fair play is getting the better of me here, but let's Tool up and make this right.






Pedrinho is only the ultimate athlete when the challenge doesn't involve the Athlete skill.

Of course, in an ideal world, we would have gotten both the Resolve penalty AND the tokens. But whatever. Our debt to the universe is now paid off, and no one can accuse us of being weasels.

Also, since we didn't succeed, we still have our last Tool.




For now, our desire to plunder Nature nodes overpowers our loathing of spending 2 Supplies to move.

Voodoo pirates, voodoo monkeys, and now a voodoo deer.

Pedrinho steps up to remind everyone that he's still totally wicked sick.




Oh, come on! The antlers of a voodoo deer are a "trophy"... but not a straight up treasure?

Bah. Being a douchebag trophy hunter sucks.




I don't think anyone will feel that I'm out of line if I insist that our crew's collective pronoun is "they", not "it". Damn it, game.

That aside, you might remember that Emilia's campfire story was about finding a special prehistoric Caribbean flower.

Are we at last approaching our captain's goal?

Yes. Yes, we are.




Amazing! Not only does it glow in the dark, it can even survive for untold ages underwater.




In my own runs with Emilia, I've never actually found this flower, so I didn't know if it would count as a treasure in its own right.

But five MORE Discovery tokens just for finding it? That's what our last treasure was worth, and that in turn was worth more than almost all our other treasures!




Aww. Despite their conflicts with each other, Pedrinho and Maria both decide that their captain's love of nature - and her ability to monetize the everliving shit out of her discoveries - is super inspiring. They vow on the spot to help Emilia become the best scientist who has EVER scienced.

So we don't get an actual treasure, but the end of any crew story comes with permanent crew buffs - and we can expect them here.




In this case, both Pedrinho and Maria get a "Likes Emilia" buff for +5 Spirit. Not quite as spectacular as Pedrinho's +25% Speech Power bonus for not scoring with Maria, but every little bit helps.




Back on the map, yet another treasure node has appeared.

After some quick calculations, I realize we'll have just enough Supplies to loot this and still get back to the final node without taking any starvation debuffs.

So yeah, I think we should continue this roll we're on.




You know, if we get a treasure from both this and the final node, that will leave us with a total of five treasures for this expedition. And at the start of this thread, I cited five treasures as the benchmark of an outstanding expedition.

Let's choose to have an outstanding expedition, guys.




Oh no, I can't remember. Do we have anyone with a ton of Survivalist skills?




Awww, look at our crew's pouty faces. Pedrinho's only been gone for like five minutes, and already everyone is sad.




Emilia's powers of ritual mimicry (and cultural appropriation) have grown considerably since her inaugural expedition.






Even though Pedrinho and Emilia are both super-nice, Maria continues to find completely baseless faults in her crewmates.

Perhaps the person Maria truly has a problem with isn't Pedrinho or Emilia, but herself.




If you can't steal a pirate's ship, stealing their flag is a legitimate and widely-respected substitute.




I have a bad feeling about this. Emilia is the least sneaky and roguelike of all our crew!




And it doesn't even matter. Emilia boldly yoinks the flag without even having to make a spin!




I actually had to think about this one.

The +1 Discovery per treasure is the most immediately tempting choice, but then I wondered if it would really help that much. After all, there is only one more treasure we can expect this expedition, and the final expedition's tokens we won't even get to spend (as the game ends after that).

So arguably +2 Science per Study or two Treasure Hunt tokens would help us more at the end of THIS expedition.

But in the end, I decided that an extra Discovery per treasure would bring our per-treasure bonus to two Discovery tokens and a Treasure Hunt token, and that's just too cool to resist. We'll still get all the Renown from the extra Discovery token, and that's all the help we'll need.




As icing on the cake, Pedrinho has prepared an effortless escape for us. He's such an elite Survivalist that even if he had half his skill levels, we'd still have stood an excellent chance of escaping.




We won't dwell on the fridge question of all the other situations we've had where Pedrinho could have set some traps.

Instead, we have all the cause in the world to celebrate our little score here.

We now officially have the minimum required Renown for a victory. All we have to do now is beat the final node of this map and then complete one more expedition, and this forum may claim another LP win, courtesy of your chosen captain and your excellent map votes! (And to a lesser extent my own skills at this game.)




As though all this wasn't great enough, the Flying Dutchman adventure was a Nature node, and we now have enough to get another Discovery token upgrade.

We should pick Gold yet again, because it's awesome for our pursuit of science to be so uber-lucrative.

Enjoy it, Emilia. A hundred and fifty years from now, not every scientist will be as wealthy as you.




Indeed we should be proud, as Emilia's improvements have now made each Discovery token worth almost TWICE as much Gold as a Treasure Hunt token.




When the game opened, Discovery tokens were worth 25-30 Gold, and Treasure Hunts were 50-75 (and the latter hasn't improved). So yeah, I don't think we'll have any trouble buying all the best gear for our final expedition.

And on that high note, we'll call this an update. Tune in next time as we make the final push to finish this map... and then decide whether our last expedition will or won't be about fighting dinosaurs!

I bought the game in the sale! I just got to the final map, and... yeah. It eats Resolve like candy

Sweet! Hope you're enjoying it (other than the brutality of the final expedition, that is).

Meanwhile, our next update isn't ready, but I need to talk about the "surprise" I hinted at last time.

I was and am pleased by the relatively warm response my thread received here, and so - when the thread ended - I was plotting to surprise everyone by giving a copy of Renowned Explorers to the top three posters (other than myself, of course). You know, to thank them for helping keep this LP alive and whatnot.

Tragically, though, Steam does not permit me to buy gift copies of this game to save for later. I must buy them and send them to a friend immediately.

So we're just going to do the giveaway now.

Torzelbaum, Mogri, and Kalir - congratulations, you are the lucky winners.

Please PM me your Steam IDs as soon as possible so that I may gift you.

Mogri, since you already bought this game, I will instead give you the More To Explore DLC (if you didn't get that too), or you can yield your prize to Taeryn, or I can figure something else out. Your call! (The same applies to Torzelbaum or Kalir, should they already have this game as well.)

Thanks, Vivisector 9999. I don't have this game and even though it looks interesting I don't think it's really the best fit for me. So I yield my prize to Taeryn.

Your wish is granted!

Now I need to figure out what to do if someone else yields to Taeryn, too.

Send Taeryn the base game and the DLC?

I like that. Sounds like a plan!

I'd be happy to take the DLC. My Steam id is "megapants."

You need to friend me first, I think. Let me know when you've put the request in; I won't be near my laptop this weekend.

And thanks - for the game and the LP!

I shanked a nun. I don't know if I'm ready for this

Heh heh heh. You all are welcome.

Just so you know, after this run was completed, I was contemplating doing an Emperor's Challenge run (so everyone could see how that mode works) - only next time it'll be an Aggressive run so you can also see how different THAT is to our current uber-Friendly run!

And we are back! This time, we've got a big action-packed update for your reading enjoyment.

You see, last time I went the entire update without a single encounter. In fact, if you don't count the glitch fight at the beginning, I think we've had all of, like, ONE encounter this whole expedition.

What a waste of chances for Pedrinho to show off his uber Speech Power!

So we're going to fix that on our way to the final node.




There are three encounter nodes in sight (counting the final node), and we're going to use the last of our Supplies to hit them ALL.

Northeast fight, ho!




Captain Emilia will use her mad Archaeologist skills to dig up the inconspicuous place.






Emilia succeeds in digging up the first pile of tokens, but Pedrinho warns her not to go further.

Like one of Tolkien's dwarves, however, our captain has no qualms about digging too greedily and too deeply!






Again, Emilia dodges whatever disaster is waiting here.

We get the temptation to keep going! And this time, we'll get a Treasure Hunt token!

Really, what kind of LP would this be if we didn't go for it? Either outcome - getting the tokens or getting attacked by giant crabs - will be entertaining.

We'll use our Tool to bump the odds up to 63%, though.






Wow, it's just going to keep this loop going until we finally fail or wise up.

Well, we came looking for a fight, so let's fail!






Aww yeah, here we go. Come face the wrath of the Hurricane of Rio, you sand-sucking crustaceans!




As always, we get the most tokens for a Friendly victory, but a Devious victory here would be nice, too.




So to start, we're outnumbered two to one by these bastards.

Worse yet, check out their stats:




That's some seriously balls-out defense, both Speech and Armor.

Luckily, the Crabs still have a few weaknesses.

One, they only move two spaces a turn. So our hit and run bullshit will be easier than usual.

Two, they're vulnerable to both Rage and Sadness flavored attacks, which are the only Devious attacks we have.

And three, if we hit them with Devious attacks, their shells open up and they become a LOT more vulnerable!




We'll start by blitzing left with our crew and seeing if we can take out the two Crabs there. Maria and Emilia will soften them up with Devious attacks, then Pedrinho will mow them down with Party Time.

Then we'll just keep running away from the larger Crab group until Pedrinho's Party Time recharges.




Crabs are tough, yo.




Well, shit. The Crab is now an Angry Crab, but only its Armor went down - not its Speech Defense. Pedrinho isn't going to take it down with Party Time - not with only one other Crab adjacent to boost the move's power.

And also the Angry Crab's Attack Power is increased. Yikes.




Change of plan.

Emilia is going to hit the newly Angry Crab with her Amnesia Shot, then Pedrinho will hit it with his Disarming Smile. If the boosted crab doesn't go down, it'll still be unable to attack!




Oooh. It turns out that the Amnesia Shot weakened the Angry Crab's defenses enough for Party Time to finish it after all. Let's go with that so we can hit both Crabs!




This time, an obstructing tree gives Pedrinho's Party Time dance a hint of mystery, but he succeeds in ushering the Angry Crab off the field.

It's the end of the round, and unfortunately a Crab is still right on top of us. But surely it won't be able to down any of our crew with one hit.

Surely.




The Crab chooses to whack Pedrinho, but doesn't hurt him enough to worry us.




Start of round 2.

Beautifully, the larger Crab group is trying to funnel themselves through a one-tile opening. That's going to take them a while.




Still in the shadows, Pedrinho will ragedump the Crab that struck him.

I decide to use Pedrinho's Disarming Smile because it has a 100% hit rate, unlike his default Devious attack.




I failed to get the screencap for this attack, but he does succeed in getting the Crab off the field. Now we just need to hold out three more rounds for Party Time to recharge.




To finish off the round, Maria and Emilia will crowd around Pedrinho (getting away from the remaining Crabs).

Emilia will enhance Maria...




...and then Maria will heal almost all the damage Pedrinho took from that Crab.

Start of round 3.

The Crabs have feebly advanced, but with 2 movement, they have no hope of closing with us unless we allow it. It is WE, and not them, who control this battle.

So we're going to keep giving the Crabs the runaround (and enhancing our own crew) until Pedrinho's Party Time has recharged.




Start of round 4.

The Crabs are like "Sweet ass-banging Cthulhu, we're really doing this."

And we have one more round until Party Time recharges.




Start of round 5.

Party Time is back online, but the Crabs aren't quite in the formation for a triple hit.

But I have another possibly horrible idea.




The frontmost Crab occupies a one-tile-wide passage... and the Crabs only use Aggressive attacks with a reach of one tile.

So if we can jam the passage like this, our crew can take on the Crabs one at a time! Pedrinho and Emilia can hammer whichever Crab is in the front with physical and Devious attacks, while Maria can easily heal whatever damage the Crabs do with their one attack. You know, just like the dudes did at the battle of Thermopylae in 300.

Madness? THIS! IS! EMERGED! ISLAND!




Emilia's wagging tongue turns the Crab into Angry Crab...




...but Pedrinho and his roundhouse kick are decidedly unsympathetic to the creature's plight.




The Hurricane of Rio leaves the Crab in a place where Maria's Sadden attack can easily finish it off.

I won't bore you with the gif on that one.




Another Crab has fallen, leaving the enemy with half their starting number.

Our plan is working well - but can it keep working?




The frontmost Crab delivers an unimpressive hit to our captain.




All the same, Maria immediately steps up to tend to Emilia's boo-boo.




Then Emilia wags her tongue at the Crab.

This fight has dragged on for long enough, so we're going to dispense with the gifs from this point.




Pedrinho kicks the now Angry Crab.




Because I used Maria to heal, the Angry Crab is still standing at the end of our turn.

Oh well.




Start of whatever round this is.

The Angry Crab actually hit Pedrinho pretty hard, but we're not concerned. Emilia is going to finish it off with her shovel.




That attack shifted our stance to Aggressive. The Crabs are still Aggressive themselves, so we get a +25% bonus to Devious attacks.

Like Pedrinho's Disarming Smile.

I'd like you to note that Pedrinho is doing THAT much speech damage to the Crab even through its 80 Speech Defense.

You just can't keep a good Hurricane down.




Throwing caution to the wind, Maria leaps into the one-tile gap to use her new Heartplay against the other Crab.

It counts as a Devious move when we're Aggressive, so it too gets the +25% bonus. It'll also stun the Crab, leaving both of the crustaceans unable to attack us next round!

This is our first outing with this move, so we'll do the gif after all:




Again, a massive amount of Spirit damage even against an 80 Speech Defense. And Maria doesn't have the advantage of Pedrinho's Legendary Book item.

You know, I think we'll be using this Heartplay move a lot more often.

And getting Maria a super-powerful offensive item of her own.




The round ends with both Crabs on their last legs and unable to attack.

The next round begins with the Crabs realizing that the only thing they can do is suck and die.

And so they do.






We won the encounter, but then I realized that, well, you know all those digging challenges we just did? And all the Treasure Hunt and other tokens that came with it?

You only get that reward if you walk away before the crabs appear. So we used up our last Tool for nothing.

Damn it, game.

At least we gained valuable experience towards getting everyone to level 5.

And we probably won't need that Tool anyway.




If anything, we're in even MORE of a mood for hostile encounters, so we proceed northwest in the general direction of the next fight.




An unexciting gain, but we'll take it.

Indeed it's not a coincidence. If you find the nodes with the other two crystals, they combine to form a free treasure. But it's too late for us to do that, since the path WE took had a bunch of other awesome stuff.




We continue northwest to the Wits node, on our path to more glorious encounters.




We may be deliberately looking for trouble, but we're still officially a Friendly crew.




Beneath the fourth option is "Take his stuff and go".

But why do that when Maria could effortlessly talk him into making a statue of her?

(While we're on the subject, it's nice to see Maria's new horde of Campaign tokens for Beguiler spins.)

Of course, Emilia and Pedrinho are far too modest to demand a statue in their image.

All of these options seem to offer the same reward (3 Campaign tokens), so I think we can all agree that the most outrageous-sounding one is best.




And we receive an astonishing pile of tokens to go with Maria's statue.

Now I'm slightly over the disappointment with the crab challenge. Slightly.




At last, another chance to prove our badassness is at hand.

Encounter, ho!




When you roll with the Hurricane of Rio, you always approach in the most polite manner.




And we're back to Friendly being the only form of victory worth considering.




Start of round 1.

Contrary to the event text, that Voodoo Pirate actually has FOUR pet monkeys, not two.

But no matter. They have made the mistake of opening Devious, and thus they have already lost.




Our first move is to have Maria and Emilia use their Devious attacks against one of the Voodoo Monkeys on the left. Taking the bastard down will shift our stance to Devious.

Wait, what? I thought we were a Friendly crew!

Trust me, tyrants. I'm setting up an epic move here.




Now it's Emilia's turn.




The Voodoo Monkey can't take the pressure and ragequits the battle.




Switching to Devious stance when the other side is Devious grants us a +25% to all Friendly moves.

Including Pedrinho's Party Time.

Note how the Voodoo Pirate there is Excite-resistant (which, yes, is Party Time's element)... but he's still taking a huge hit here!




Sadly, my angle was kinda off on the capture there, but wow. 174 damage?




The round ends with the other side wondering just what the hell hit them.

Oh, and we're back to Friendly for an uber Speech Defense boost.

The rest of this encounter is merely a formality. The remaining monkey and pirate do a piddly amount of damage to us before they're Excite-bombed to the next area code.

Seriously, that Tense bonus makes Devious the most suicidal possible way for bad guys to open against our crew.




We're kicking ass! Let's keep kicking ass!




Oh, by all means, alert the others. We're still taking names here.




We are down to our last Supply point. It is now time to explore the final node and seal the deal on our best expedition yet.




Our captain is the most adorkable scientist and explorer in the world. Why would we deny Captain Roche a chance to meet her?




A horde of pirates sounds like a challenge worthy of the Hurricane of Rio! But first we'll politely listen to Roche do his Saruman speech.




Okay, now I really have to question the logistics of the Emerged Island. It only recently emerged from the depths of the ocean. Sure, Roche is a ghost, so being underwater isn't a big deal to him... but where did all these voodoo pirates come from?

Also, we're in the Caribbean. By this point, the Spanish have already spent centuries being giant dicks to this part of the world, so I can kinda see Roche's point of view here. I say we let him go on his rampage and loot his hideout while he's away!




Oh, he's going to hit Havana.

If you didn't know, Havana was experiencing something of a renaissance in the 19th century. In fact, this expedition is happening about a generation after when Cuba became the fifth country in the world to have a railroad - and the first Spanish-speaking country. That's right, Cuba got railroads before fricking Spain (1837 vs 1848).

I guess we can't let Roche pillage Havana.

But which approach should we use to distract the pirates?




Bingo. Once again, Pedrinho's immense Survivalist skills come in handy. Did we pick the best possible map for our crew or what?

But just out of curiosity, let's check out the other option.




Aww. As much as we'd enjoy the gunpowder approach, Emilia just isn't as good an Engineer as Pedrinho is a Survivalist.




Unfortunately for us, Roche is an actual ghost, so contrary to what Scooby Doo has taught us, we won't be able to simply pull off his mask and end all this bullshit.




Talk about being blinded by vengeance. Emilia, Maria, and Pedrinho are Polish, Argentinian, and Brazilian, respectively. Totally not Spanish.

Let's open this encounter with an insult (ie Devious). If Roche opens Devious, we'll already be in place for a super boosted Party Time. And if he opens Aggressive, we'll already be countering him with a Grit bonus. Win-win!

If you punch him in the face, your fist goes through him because he's a ghost, and your crew is embarrassed.